St Paul's Dean Graeme Knowles resigns over protests

St Paul's Dean Graeme Knowles resigns over protests

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-15524483

Another senior member of St Pauls clergy resigns, this follows last week's resignation of Dr Giles Fraser, who had been sympathetic to the activists. What a moral dilemma these people are finding themselves in

St Paul's Clerics suppress report on bankers' greed

Exclusive: Cover-up at St Paul's
Clerics suppress report on bankers' greed to save church embarrassment

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/exclusive-coverup-at-st-pauls-6255110.html

‘’A highly critical report into the moral standards of bankers has been suppressed by St Paul's Cathedral amid fears that it would inflame tensions over the Occupy London tent protest.
The report, based on a survey of 500 City workers who were asked whether they thought they were worth their lucrative salaries and bonuses, was due to be published last Thursday, the day that the Canon Chancellor of St Paul's, Giles Fraser, resigned in protest at the church's tough stance.
But publication of the report, by the St Paul's Institute, has been delayed in an apparent acknowledgement that it would leave the impression that the cathedral was on the side of the protesters.’’

On the side of the protesters??....................oh dear,  can’t have the world think St Pauls is in favour of social justice can we? what a terrible reputation that would give them.

I hate the bloody conservative government

I hate the bloody conservative government


I’ve just heard on the news that this government, partly in response to the riots earlier this year, has decided that if a person is in receipt of benefit and unemployed the courts will be able to take £25.00 per week from their benefits in court fines if they break the law.  This will come into effect in 2013. Previously the courts were only able to take £5.00 per week from benefits. I’ve been online and made a rough calculation. A couple, both over 18 with two young children will receive approx £150 per week, £105 income support for them and £45 tax credit for the children. Take £25.00 from that and you are left with about £120 per week for a family of four. Our lovely Prime Minister has decided this, the same man who has reported personal wealth of £30 million.


My major concern is not with the ‘crime’ what ever that was, but the family, those two children will be living well below the poverty line, and the poor parents will probably be forced into further law breaking just to feed their children. Why should the jobless be treated more harshly than those in work?? Is this just another punishment for being jobless in a society that fails to provide jobs for every one? Why should a person without a job be left with less to feed his family than another man who has committed the same crime but happens to have a job??

Occupy London protesters may be evicted

Occupy London protesters may be evicted as legal action is taken

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/880062-occupy-london-protesters-may-be-evicted-as-legal-action-is-taken-at-st-pauls-cathedral-camp


‘’ Legal action had 'regrettably become necessary' because people had refused to leave the area peacefully, according to a spokesperson for St Paul's Cathedral.’’

Well lets hope this ‘regrettable action’ doesn’t end up like the ‘regrettable evictions’ at Dale Farm. If we have scenes like that on the doorstep of St Pauls it will take more than a bit of damage limitation to recover their reputation

St Pauls like a shanty town says MP

MP says ‘St Paul's Cathedral 'like a shanty town' after anti-capitalist protest’

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/879584-st-pauls-cathedral-like-a-shanty-town-after-anti-capitalist-protest

Protestors camped outside St Paul’s Cathedral have left the landmark looking like ‘a third-world shanty town’, according to MP Mark Field.

‘It looks like a third world shanty town. I have been out to places like India were they have them cheek by jowl with gleaming new buildings – it looks just like that.’'

What an idiot that man is………….maybe he hasn’t quite grasped the fact that those inequalities, the poor living in shanty towns right next to the rich who live in their ’gleaming new buildings’….
ARE CAUSED BY THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM, THE SAME SYSTEM THE PROTESTERS ARE PROTESTING AGAINST.

Art Sunday, Sore Throat, an exhibition by Dale Frank

Today I have a cold, a sore throat and a head that feels like cotton wool. Which is why I’m being a little lazy in my Art Sunday post. I usually post a blog but today its easier to put every thing into an album. I found this and thought it appropriate.
This was an exhibition called ‘Sore Throat’: an exhibition of paintings by Dale Frank at the Roslyn Oxley9 gallery in 2007.

The following is the press release, the link to the site and some examples of his work.


Dale Frank - Sore Throat, 2007
View Exhibition Images here
http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/13/Dale_Frank/553/
PRESS RELEASE
Dale Frank

Sore Throat

Dale Frank’s highly conceptualized abstractions convey an overriding fascination with the inherent plasticity of paint. Seductive poured pockets of varnish are punctuated by creeping, undulating accumulations of colour. These sometimes hallucinatory oscillations typify Frank’s paintings as evidenced in Sore Throat.

Executed without a brush in pure varnish, the beguiling spilling of paint into pooled, organic forms belies Frank’s meticulous choreography of temperature and colour. Both technician and alchemist, Frank’s process is entirely cerebral. He begins by working on a canvas horizontally, pouring successive layers upon the prime surface whilst carefully controlling humidity and density (along with drying and reaction times). The contradictions of movement and stasis are necessary elements of the work’s production; wedges and blocks are placed beneath the paintings and they are repeatedly angled to create desired effects.

Frank creates an exquisite tension between surface, depth and content manifest in his union of abstract paintings with elaborate titles. While their relationship to the paintings may seem ambiguous, they strongly influence the viewer’s response. Frank observes; ‘…People read things into them. There is electricity when they try to connect them to the paintings. You get a current going between the title, the viewer and the work. Sometimes it induces in people associations I would never have dreamed of.’

Serena Bentley

Dale Frank has been showing with Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery since 1982. His career spans more than twenty years. In 1983, he was included in the exhibition Panorama della post - critica: critica ed arte at the Museo Palazzo Lanfranchi in Pisa along with Thomas Lawson and Anselm Kiefer (curated by Helena Kontova). In 1984 he was included in the Aperto section of the Venice Biennale. Returning to Australia, in 1990 he was included in the 8th Biennale of Sydney (curated by Rene Block). A major solo retrospective of his work was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney in 2000. His paintings are held in every major public collection in Australia and in numerous private and corporate collections in Australia, Europe and the U.S.. In 2005 Frank won The Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize at the Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria. A major new monograph on Frank’s work will be available in late 2007.

Exhibition opening: Tuesday 28 August, 6 - 8pm
Exhibition dates: 28 August – 22 September, 2007

Song Saturday; Fever, Ella Fitzgerald

Oh poor me!! I have the cold, constant sneezing cotton wool head and fever. So… my music choice for today…….. fever and blues are brewing………..exactly how I feel! And now I’m going back to bed.

Ella Fitzgerald - Fever


Billie Holiday & Louis Armstrong - The Blues Are Brewin

Clergy resigns over St Pauls Protest.

Some of the clergy know how to do the right thing.
The St Paul's Cathedral canon chancellor, Dr Giles Fraser, said he had to resign over plans to remove protesters because he could not sanction 'violence in the name of the church'. Photograph: Alex Diaz/PA

read more here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/27/st-pauls-cathedral-canon-resigns

this one doesn;t embed
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=St+Paul%27s+Cathedral+canon+resigns&aq=f

10.10.2011 messin about with boats

Occupy London, a short film...........

It says here, ''now is the time.................''

Demonstrators at St Pauls

I don't always agree with this lady,
but today I do

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/janet-street-porter/editoratlarge-seems-well-use-any-word-today-except-a-word-of-kindness-2374647.html



''Closing St Paul's is beyond belief
When protesters set up camp outside St Paul's Cathedral last week, Giles Fraser, the Canon Chancellor, welcomed his new visitors in an exemplary Christian way. As they've grown in number, he's changed his tune. Visitor numbers and takings at the gift shop and café have plummeted. Now the cathedral has closed – an unthinkable act.
It should open its doors to demonstrators who have the guts to stand up for what they believe in. They may be incoherent and irritating, but they have a right to protest about our society's blatant inequality. If Jesus were alive, he'd be one of the campers. The C of E, with its vast property portfolio, admission fees and souvenirs, has a warped sense of priorities.''

Well said Janet Street Porter

Sunday Morning Velvet underground

And a nother Sunday dawns.

I took this photo a couple of Sundays ago by Montrose basin. That was a lazy Sunday spent watching boats and gulls and doing a bit of drawing. There's not a lot of sunshine around here today, not that the weather makes any difference to me. For me its NOT going to be another lazy Sunday, its  another day of stripping walls.

But first, coffee and music.
Velvet Underground Sunday Morning.


 Bryan ferry You are my sunshine

 

Good Night Ladies, ( and gents of course), Lou Reed

Tis Been a busy day for me, worn out stripping walls and now I'm off to bed. This keeps buzzing around my head.  Good Night Ladies (and gents of course)
Even if you're not a fan of Lou's voice, and I can't imagine why you wouldn't be .............ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the sax is wonderful.

The decorating continues.

 Finished the living room, but don’t relax it’s on to the bedroom. I’m going to move into the little back bedroom that I’ve been using as a guest room and today I started stripping the walls.

So now I’m taking a little break, having a coffee and catching up here, but soon, well as soon as I’ve posted this, I’m back to do some more wallpaper stripping. This is the state of it now, not pretty I know, but my new paper (shown above) IS  pretty and it will look good once finished. This yellow paper is the first wallpaper to be pasted to this wall when the house was new.

I found it underneath a few layers of more modern paper. I think the yellow roses are quite old and I managed to get some off the wall undamaged. I’m considering making a piece of art work for the bedroom wall and using some of the old yellow rose paper somewhere in the art work. I like the idea of continuity.

This is my new computer corner in the living room. This games table has been stored in my shed for years and I’m so happy to find a space for it.

The inlaid chess board top turns over to reveal a green felt card table. My father made this table many years ago and this is the first time I’ve been able to use it.

And………..back to decorating the bedroom.

Art Sunday; Anders Zorn, paintings of approaching winter.

Anders Zorn

Anders Leonard Zorn, Born 18 February 1860 in Mora, Sweden and Died 22 August 1920, aged 60, in Stockholm, Sweden.
He trained at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts, Stockholm
 

He was born in Yvraden, a small Swedish hamlet and was raised there on his grandparents' farm.
From 1875–1880 Zorn studied at Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm, Sweden. He traveled to London, Paris, the Balkans, Spain, Italy and the United States, and became an internationally successful painter. His early works tended to be luminous watercolors but by about 1887 he preferred to work with oils.

Zorn painted portraits, scenes depicting rural life and traditional customs. Zorn is also famous for his nude paintings and realistic depictions of water.
 


It was his skill as a portrait painter that won Zorn his international success. His subjects even included three American Presidents and Swedish royalty.

Many of his paintings were painted in the summer and show nymph like nudes either submerged in water or tentatively putting one toe in water before actually taking the plunge. These paintings showcase both his figure drawing skills and his lifelike representation of water. These are not the paintings I’ve shown here, I chose his work because I like the way some of his paintings seem to convey a real chill in the air. To me these paintings capture the time when the temperatures drop and thoughts turn to winter…………..exactly how I feel today.

Maybe its his Scandinavian origins that allow him to paint what look like decidedly cold scenes.

 

Song Saturday, When the leaves come falling down.

I’ve been very cold these last few days. The drop in temperature exactly coincided with my downstairs neighbour moving out. I now live above an empty apartment and suddenly I realize how much heat must have travelled up from her home into mine. I'm going to miss my neighbour, she is a single mother of two and moved in a couple of months before me, we've both been here 9 years now, will be quite odd without her there. I’ve met the new tenant, but she is not moving in until the landlord has sent the contractor’s in to fit a new kitchen. I’m thinking its going to get a whole lot colder here with that apartment being left empty, and with workmen going in and out, leaving doors and windows open,  for at least a month, maybe more …………………Brrrrrrrr

When the leaves come falling down Van Morrison

Baby its cold outside

The REAL state of the NHS

We are so lucky in this country to have the NHS. At the moment the media is full of horror stories about the failings of the NHS and no one, it seems, is recognising what a valuable service we have. I’m sure there are bits of it that could be improved, there’s room for improvement in every thing, but on the whole, I think it’s a great service and I’d like to see more people appreciate what we have.  The media and the government have a vested interest in presenting the NHS as flawed; they need justification for the proposed ‘reforms’ that would change forever the service most of us depend on. These greedy people at the top are manipulating the population into believing the only thing that can save the NHS is the introduction of profiteering and privatisation.  For every horror story thrust down our throats by the ever obliging media, there are hundreds and hundreds of ordinary people going about their daily lives who, with out this service would be dead. When all we see in the media is the constant drip, drip, drip of criticism, it’s easy to forget the true value of what we have. These stories are picked up on by the media, devoured by the public who love the opportunity to have a good moan about any thing, and then used as evidence for the ‘reforms’.

 I worked in the NHS for many years and I know how complaints can stem not from a poor service, but from a patient or relatives anxiety about what is happening to them. If you are terribly worried about something, a wait of a few weeks for an appointment to see a specialist seems like an eternity, in reality, even with private health insurance you would face a wait to see a specialist. When I worked on the wards, complaints from relatives about their elderly mother/ mother-inlaw/ sister or other relative were not uncommon. But the underlying cause was very often guilt that they had not been able to care for the relative themselves, anxiety about the diagnosis and treatment or sheer denial about the patients prognosis. I remember clearly one family who made an official complaint about the ward, citing neglect and ill treatment, because their 96 year old mother had died. The lady was admitted for terminal care, but the family were unable to accept that and needed someone to blame. The ‘good’ stories tend not to have the sensationalism of the government sponsored horror stories, the positive stories are told in quiet appreciation by ordinary people about experiences that changed their lives. The NHS is not a second class service used by poor people who can't afford to 'go private'. It is a service used, owned and paid for by all of us. Its not free, we pay for it, it doesn't belong to the government, it belongs to us, and its not the terrible service the government and media would have us believe. Many people in this country don't even think about 'private insurance', why should we when we have a perfectly good service that we pay for collectively, directly from out income.
Consider this scenario. A family are driving along the back roads from one town to another. Its not in the middle of no where but it is a rural location. The breaks fail, the car goes off the road, into a ditch, turns over and crashes into a tree. Luckily a farm worker sees what has happened and dials the emergency services. The police attend, make the area safe and divert the traffic, the ambulance service attend and paramedics assess the situation and give immediate first aid. The fire brigade attend because the driver needs to be cut out of the car. The paramedics in the ambulance transport the less injured mother and children to a local hospital. The driver is assessed as being more seriously injured and in need of emergency, specialist treatment. The paramedics arrange for an air ambulance to attend and lift the driver to a major hospital where a specialist surgical team are waiting to carry out life saving surgery. The car is a total write off and the insurance goes no where near compensating for the financial loss. Every member of the family survive and their bill is A BIG FAT ZERO. You think this is far fetched, it isn't, it happens more often than you would think.  I would like to say to my fellow Brits...........wake up,
stop moaning and appreciate what you have before you lose it.

I would like to see more reporting of the ‘good’ NHS stories; here are a couple of simple stories of simple sucsess.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/120874/Obama-s-stepmother-The-NHS-saved-my-life

Apparently the NHS saved the life of Obamas stepmother. She is quoted as saying; ‘“It’s very simple: I owe my life to the NHS. If it wasn’t for the NHS I wouldn’t have been alive to see our family’s greatest moment, when Barack became President.”

http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/s/2095620_praise_for_gps_who_understand_teenagers

Praise for GPs who understand teenagers
The University Medical Practice has received an award for its accessibility to young people.

If I'm gone for a while don't panic.................I'm about to crawl under this table, unplug/ untangle this mass of leads cables and wires, and transport the whole lot to the 'new computer corner' in the living room. This could take me a while. I'm not the worlds best at stuff like this. In fact..............I'm so amateurish, that the leads all have sticky tickets on them saying ...'printer to computer', keyboard to computer, scanner to power............etc etc etc..............yep I'm that hopeless. Wish me luck think I'm gonna need it.

Garden 2011 no 15

GARDEN 2011 N0 15
Rain stopped play today

Rain stopped play today. It was windy when I went out, that would have been OK, but then it poured with rain, so here I am back indoors with out finishing off in the garden.
I opened up the shed, took every thing out and then the rain came down, I was soaked putting every thing away and once wet………….I thought I may as well take a couple more photos.

This is my new garden bench, it’s my old fish tank stand covered with a slab of reclaimed marble. What a lucky coincidence, my son-in-law had this slab of marble sitting in his shed, he doesn’t even know where it originally came from, and it’s a perfect fit. It’s a totally recycled/ reclaimed piece of garden furniture, its too heavy for any one to take away, it doesn’t need to be put away at the end of the day and it's multifunctional. I can sit here, watch the world go by and take a break, or I can use it as a work bench. In the winter when I’m not likely to be out enjoying the view, it can be used to stand pots on to keep them off the ground. As a bonus………….its a dam good looking  garden feature.

This is my new corner garden. Maybe you remember I heaped all the turf that was removed to create the vegetable patch into an unused corner of the garden and covered it with garden membrane and plastic for a few months. It didn’t take long for the grass to die off and the soil to settle. I dug it over, removed what was left of the grass roots and planted it up with new lavender and  heather. I added all the old lavender that was scattered around the garden in pots or odd corners. In the past I've lost lavender over the winter because its feet become too wet in the pots. This is a well drained site and I’m hoping the lavender  thrives here.

The new flower bed along the side is more established now, it should really come into its own next year. I have honeysuckle, jasmine, hydrangea, and a couple of other purple/ pink shrubs that I can’t remember the names of right now.

And it’s too wet to go out to the garden and check.

I wanted to do three things today, I wanted to prune back all the fruit canes, remove the grass and unwanted weeds from the ‘wild flower’ bed and bring in my geraniums to take cuttings and re-pot for over wintering indoors. I still have a good show of colour with the geraniums but if I leave them much longer I risk losing the whole lot to frost. Rain stopped play and I achieved none of that. The geraniums are still out there. They must be my priority now, they need to come indoors urgently.

The water in the pond is looking good, its clear, I can see the bottom and the duck weed is doing a good job of covering the surface. I'm quietly confident, as they say, of being able to put tadpoles back in again next year.

Lastly…………..can any one identify this for me please? I planted it from a packet of mixed herb seeds; it’s a good looking delicate, woody stemmed, aromatic plant. It stands about 8 inches tall and I recognise the smell, I just can’t quite identify exactly what it is.

Multiply is being bad again...............took forever to post pictures in the blog, visited someones home page and it almost crashed my computer, things not loading, comments not posting... etc etc etc.......................don't know whats going on. tonight

Garden 2011 No 14

I’ve not posted a garden update since July, before I went to France. I didn’t realise it was so long and much has happened since then. I’ve had a period when I was unable to work in the garden due to the arthritis, which put a holt to the gardening for a while. But that wasn’t the only problem. For a start, I faced total disaster when I came back from France in July. Something awful had happened to my pond. I left it with plants, tadpoles and baby frogs, when I came back the pond was putrid and almost dead. There were some dead baby frogs in the pond and I guess the others had managed to jump out and get away. I’ve no idea what caused this, it looked like pollution, and all I could think was that someone had tipped something noxious in the pond while I was away. The smell coming off the water was unimaginable. I had no choice but to empty it out and refill it. I took as many plants out I could out and rinsed them off under the tap before replacing them, some had already died and were slimy and smelly. I managed to get hold of a handful of duckweed, which I know spreads rapidly and has a purifying effect on the water. After a couple of weeks I could see a visible improvement in the pond plants, the water was clear and there was no smell. On the down side, the pond had improved sufficiently to be full of mosquito larvae, and as I had no frogs left I had to buy a couple of goldfish to keep the larvae under control. I’ve not seen the goldfish since I put them in but the larvae is under control so I’m guessing they are still in there somewhere. I didn’t want goldfish, I’m back with the same old problem I had last year of trying to find them and get them out before the freezing temperatures hit and they freeze to death. Even if they are lucky enough to survive the winter in the pond, they will have to be removed in the spring before I put new frog spawn in and try (yet again) to establish a wild life pond. All that happened at the end of July, and today is my first full day in the garden for ages, there is  no sign of the goldfish, but no larvae either, the water is clear, the plants are thriving, the birds are coming down to drink and bath and the pond is looking good.
The garden was a bit overgrown, but I made a good start on it today and if I can get out tomorrow I think I can really get back on top of things.
One of the first things I did was to paint my new gate and touch up all the blue doors. If you remember my garden gate was blown off its hinges in the storms a few months ago. The old wooden gate was beyond repair but my son-in-law very kindly welded, drilled and generally fixed an old iron gate, that had been laying about the garden for years, onto the wall and now……….its perfect. No amount of wind will blow this one away.
I have cut the grass, re-cut the grass and re-cut the grass again, it was so overgrown it needed a lot of work.

I weeded my vegetable garden and even managed to salvage quite a few of the carrots.

My daughter has agreed to come back next week and enlarge the vegetable plot and today I managed to cut a small trench in the grass outlining the new boundary.

I also did some herb maintenance; I weeded and trimmed all the herbs growing in containers. I also harvested seeds to save ready for next year.

As soon as my fence was finished and painted earlier this year, I emptied a couple of packets of wild flower seeds around the inside of the fence, and this is the result.

Not bad considering the fence was only finished a couple of months ago. Some of these flowers don’t exactly look like ‘wild’ flowers, but they are pretty and colourful.


The biggest problem I have right now is finding space for all the compostable garden waste. I have mounds of grass cuttings, weeds, herb cuttings, turf dug out from the vegetable patch and used compost. Both of my compost bins are full to overflowing, one should actually be ready by the spring but the other one I’ve only just finished filling so it will longer. I refuse to throw this organic matter away and so for now it is piled into unused containers and covered, guess I’ll decide how to use it next year by which time it should have composted down a bit.

If the weather stays this nice tomorrow, and if I’m still feeling ok, I’m going to try to prune the fruit canes and generally finish of out there ready for the winter.